Is Facebook Extorting Gambling Companies?

It should also be noted that this article represents the views of the author and not necessarily those of the staff at CAP.

The following (true) story shouldn’t come as a surprise to most affiliates, and I’m sure we can stir up a few strong reactions to Facebook from this audience– from its company value dropping to how it takes liberties with the iGaming community.

In the past, affiliates had a more positive reaction to Facebook, like when we were allowed to advertise. However, the Facebook’s latest swipe at the iGaming world appears to be nothing short of extortion. Their latest “initiative” seems to deal with them allowing real money gaming and wanting to cut out people by charging them to run a gaming-related Fan Page.

Andy Edwards, a long time affiliate (madaboutbingo.com), and white label owner (madaboutslots.co.uk), recently received an email regarding the Fan Page from Facebook (for the latter of his sites) after contacting them to ask why it was removed.

Now you may think it was some sort of licensing issue. Nope. He offered to provide Facebook with a copy of his license. Did he buy spammy Likes? Nope.

Then what could have caused them to shut down his fan page? Simple. They want him to spend £10,000 per month for the privilege of having a Fan Page. It gets worse:

For awhile, I thought this must be some sort of racket, but apparently Siam does seem to be a legitimate employee of the company. Now Andy goes on to make a fair point as ask why he is singled out. He was told the following:

This is starting to look like Facebook targeting people who they think can pay this and it is likely that we are going to see an awful lot more of this. So, if you’re using your Facebook community frequently, be prepared to shell out £10k a month or lose it.

Added to this, Facebook suggest that Andy can no longer advertise with Facebook unless he spends more than $30,000.

Now just to put the final nail in the coffin of this, we have the following screen shot of Facebook’s Help section on this issue. As you can see, it does not mention anywhere that a certain amount of money needs to be spent.

Just for good measure, Facebook’s Ad guidelines (as you can see by my find bar in the following screensh0t), there are six mentions of the word “gambling,” all of which appear on this page. None mentions any cash restrictions on advertising.

So, aside from the fact that Facebook is essentially in a position to do whatever the hell they want, is this fair? No. Is this in breach of their Ts and Cs? Not that I can see.

Essentially Facebook is now in the racket of extorting their leverage in industries where they can afford it. Well, no luck this time, Facebook. As far as I know, Mad About won’t be paying these extortionate fees any time soon.

However, my real concern is how long before we see this in other industries? How long before your local takeaway is being extorted for a few hundred pounds every month which they can’t afford?

49 Responses to Is Facebook Extorting Gambling Companies?

Nice post.
I’ve tried to contact Facebook about my companies Facebook as well to get that “prior authorization” for a while, but haven’t gotten a real answer. Our casino has the license to operate in the Danish market, so that’s the market our page adresses.
I even got in touch with a FB-employee in my network, who told me in a very arrogant way that he “don’t think there’s room for us on Facebook”

I’ve talked to a few Danish social media experts as well, and what I can read between the lines of their answers, is that to get an authorization from Facebook you definitely need to come with a budget.
I am willing to put in a budget as I think FB is an amazing tool, but definitely not in the size that I hear from the social media experts. It’s less than the amount you mention – but still a pretty big budget for a relative small market as Denmark is.
I think Facebook might be overestimating the amount of money that’s made in the online gaming industry.

So I guess this means that facebook will be limiting affiliate access to real money gaming on their site. Sounds like a ‘money grab’ that is unbecoming of a site that has had, up to now, a good reputation.

So gaming marketers, you’ll have to find another site or ‘cut them in’.

I am a Social Media Consultant for a large poker company, we have been trying to get our pages whitelisted now for over a year and contact with Facebook is nigh impossible, we have been dealing with a 3rd party who are in direct liason with FB and from what we now know is the following; You have to have an Account Manager, therefore the “recommended” spend for this is $10k a month, however this can be negoiated when speaking to them, what we do NOT know is if it is $10k per page, we currently have 3 fan pages, this would mean a mind-blowing $30k a month spend!!! We are in a position where we CANNOT contact Facebook in fear of them taking down our pages if we do not agree to the spend. What does tickle me is that Facebook tell their users that “Facebook will ALWAYS be free” Rather than extorting huge amounts of money off companies they should have a set fee for pages, maybe in the region of $100 a month, they would certainly earn more money that way as you will agree most companies would agree to this amount of spend. As for now we live in fear of having our pages taken down and the possibility that I may be out of a job.

The problem with this $10K advertising spend is people have been accusing FB of falsify clicks. So even if you have deep pockets, spending $10K a month of FB advertising, if what these people say is true, then your effectively paying to keep the FB muscle from trashing your virtual business. Nothing more than a protection racket!

Some further proof relating to FaceBook click fraud and also charges by FB to change fan site page’s name.

The whole thing is complete madness, but the thing I noticed before posting this article is that the whole thing seemed to be a behind closed doors issue, it’s good to let the wider community know about things like this I think.

I was shocked when i got the email as up until then we where starting to build a decent FB following for madaboutslots. Then we just had a S$%^ email from them saying the fan page had been removed due to a breach of t&c’s however they wouldnt confirm which t&c’s these where? I also replied to them regarding what the money would be spent on and why we wouldnt be able to manager our own page going forward but havent heard anything back yet.

I keen to find out how many others in the gaming industry this has happened to and is this going to be the future for igaming on FB?

This reminds me of the days of the DDOS threats. You would be contacted by a security company charging $10,000 for an audit. If you didn’t pay then you would find your site under attack.

But this is even worse, they want $10k every month and they have the ability to just unplug your site with a few key strokes (rather than try to take it down with a DDOS attack). But then it IS their site.

The harsh reality is that Facebook is a corporation. It is not a charity or government program and they are looking for ways of monetising the traffic. Paul Robinson made a great comment, if they charged $100 for every corporate/fan page they would do much better then blackmailing the gambling affiliates.

It isn’t the charge that is distasteful, it is the lack of transparency – from a company that promotes transparency.

Speaking of transparency and the T&C’s allowing FB to effectively do what they like, we have 3 Facebook accounts in our household. I’m not saying FB is selling our details, but the emails associated to these accounts are hit with a damn lot of spam. Not to mention our mobile phones too. Don’t share these emails much but strange how both services are inundated with spam since signing up with these emails and phone numbers to Facebook. Just saying!

In all but the shutting down of the page this is exactly what happened to us. We are a white label poker product with Fan page circa 3-4K fans.
We were spending in excess of £3K a month with FB. Then came a demand for $10K spend. Safe to say we stopped all our FB advertising and have never gone back.

It gets worse, we havent had any communication from them back and i have just tried to promote a post for one of my other fan pages for our bingo portal and i have had that disapproved?
We have promoted loads of posts in the past in order to get some fb likes and some traffic to different pages etc but this is really starting to annoy me now.
They claimed on the email for the post promotion that we didn’t meet their guidelines however the link to the page

Reason(s):
The content advertised by this ad is prohibited.

Before resubmitting your ad, please visit our Help Center at the link below:

This will provide additional information and examples that are compliant with our advertising guidelines.

this has nothing to do with bingo or the post we wanted to promote. Facebook need to get their act together and stop ripping people off. If any of you havent been stung by them yet its only a better of time before they do.

Hi Florian,
that fan page you see now is a new one with only 20 likes, our first one had nearly 3000 and we where starting to build a decent community on there. We added a new page whilst we continue to try and get our old page reinstated. However we have had no communication back from Facebook and the more research i do in to it the less likely it looks that we will ever get it back!
Am scared to push the new page for fear of it happening again

Hi Bob , if this is the case, would it be possible to get a contact name and telephone number, the company I consult for are serious about ensuring they are within the terms & conditions required as a gaming company, so far we have had a run around and no response from Facebook, unfortunately we are now in a position where they will not contact FB in case their pages are taken down. I would like to liase and get this sorted as soon as possible so we can move on with a viable social media campaign. You can send me a message via my site if you prefer not to disclose the details on here

Now you see the response that I had from fb was that this is not bs…. but they declined to provide further information as to which ts and cs are being breached. If its OK with you I would like to send you an email and we could discuss this incident further… (I can get it from the one you put into the comment form).

But do you think I would stake my reputation on making something like this up….

Wouldn’t it be just sensible if we could get an OFFICIAL statement from Facebook of where they stand on Gaming Companies having Facebook Pages, if there is costs involved or a minimum spend then this should be shown up-front. Would you buy from a supermarket or shop that had no prices on show until you got to the tills? It should be in black and white, for a gaming company to have a page, they need an account manager, the minimum spend is XX. Also another question, say a company invested XX a month for 6 months then halved their spend would they lose their page. These are questions that should and can be answered by Facebook, I am sure if they want to make money shouldn’t they be encouraging investment rather than all the scaremongery that is occurring due to not having their stall set out and clearly priced?

Well I’ll answer this quite quickly as I’m UK based and won’t be sat on this till late at night for this debate.

I’m happy for you to mention me, I see no issue with that. In fact if you do mention it I would rather it be in relation to me as opposed to CAP. Seeing as this post reflects what I have seen not them as a company although I have shared with the the email strings.

The response I have received is through a contact although I’d be happy to post it should he be OK with me adding it, I’ll ask, I’ll be more than happy to share this privately as long as you keep it confidential.

There isn’t really any need to get defensive about this I’m very willing to believe you have been told one thing by someone at fb, I’m just saying I’ve been told and seen another.

In terms of the account management fee vs the unwarned removal of the page do you not see this as slightly unethical if not tantamount to extortion? Granted the wording may be strong, but is that not the point of a headline to gain attention?

Now on another note I will probably only check this periodically over the weekend at best so if I dont respond further till Monday then my apologies. And once again, I would be interested in any statements you have from fb to the contrary of this in which case I’ll be happy to add in what they have to say on the matter should you be willing to share.

This post was started at my request as i didnt know who else to speak to and was and still arent getting any response from facebook regarding this matter.
This forum is dedicted to the igaming community and as such this is where we turned to find some help and see if other igaming webmasters have had similer issues which some clearly have.

However Bob i fail to see how a site called yourmoms.com has to do with gambling other then a a link of a forum directed to your site?

If you are a true member of this forum then you would realise why it is set up and how we are all here to help each other. If you do know somebody at Facebook who could shed some light on to this then please do the right thing and inform them of this post.

E. Gambling and Lotteries
i. Ads that promote or facilitate online gambling, games of skill or lotteries, including online casino, sports books, bingo, or poker, are only allowed in specific countries with prior authorization from Facebook.
ii. Lotteries run by government entities may advertise on Facebook, provided that ads must be targeted in accordance with applicable law in the jurisdiction in which the ads will be served and may only target users in the jurisdiction in which the lottery is available.
iii. Ads that promote offline gambling establishments, such as offline casinos, in accordance with applicable laws and regulations, are generally permitted, provided that ads must be appropriately targeted.
iv. Please refer to the Help Center for additional gambling-specific guidance.

Mike,

Yes, exactly… you were trying to get attention for your article, and thats the bulk of what you were trying to do here… by making the extortion suggestion.

The reality is as Facebook states… “Ads that promote or facilitate online gambling, games of skill or lotteries, including online casino, sports books, bingo, or poker, are only allowed in specific countries with prior authorization from Facebook.”

So to answer your question… “Then what could have caused them to shut down his fan page?”

Maybe it’s because he didn’t have “prior authorization from Facebook”

Is that extortion? No, it’s not.

If anything is going to hurt your reputation Mike, it’s crappy journalism, lucky for you you are not a journalist. As far as your reputation as an SEO, I have no idea? What is your reputation as an SEO? Is it good, no offence but I havent heard of you.

Did I clear this up for the readers at all?
Facebook extorting gaming companies = no
Crappy journalism = yes

Oh and if you need to get a hold of me… Google me.
Enjoy your Saturday, and have a pint for me!

I understand Bob, but we just looked at investing into a software app for Facebook promotion, the cost was about $18k , firstly as they are in direct contact with FB we asked them to pursue the fact that we have never had confirmation of being whitelisted. Bottom line is we got back the same answer we had to pay $10k a month to advertise and maintain a page as we needed an account manager, now for Facebook responding to this garbage, why wouldn’t they deny or comfirm it and isn’t this in the best interests of all?

Gate access to users above the age of 18 years old and in jurisdictions in which permission to advertise has been granted.
Limit posting to admins. Facebook users should not be able to post content to the Page. They may, however, comment on or “Like” posts by an admin.

Gambling Applications:
Developers may operate a “For Fun” App displaying a gambling brand as long as:

It is clear through either the branding (e.g., “[insert name of gambling company] For Fun”) or the name of the App (“[insert name of gambling company] Free Poker”) that the App is a “for fun only” game.
The App does not link in any way to a gambling site.
Earnings within the App can’t be cashed out in any way, including being converted into credit that may be used to gamble online or at a casino.”

I would sincerely love someone from Facebook to contact me about advertising. and I am so surprised they do not have a “shopping cart” for gaming companies to buy ads in confidence. Sorry Bob, you have really defended Facebook and I respect you for it, but as for me, my job depends on securing a deal and with no “Black and White” way forward you can appreciate the frustrations

Haha right, for a gambling site I don’t see how this would not be a decent link, but that is irrelevant.

Secondly not a paid deal as hey why would I have to…. CAP has always been pretty good at linking out where relevant and in the case Andy’s sites are relevant.

Thirdly the advertising policy still nowhere states spend being a requirement as the emails do, but hey I’ll let that one slide too.

Fourthly the main concern is for the fan page and how Facebook handled it, no prior warning just a pull down.

Finally like you said, I’m not a journalist, my rep is pretty good in that there isn’t a long list of angry former clients looking to string me up (which to be fair most SEOs will have one or two) as well as getting a regular amount of speaking slots, articles published and so on, not a massive name granted, but I’d say a decent rep all the same. And re the titling one of the key points is hoping to make a bit of noise and maybe get some proper response on the subject so shock titles work well for that and as I have said extortion is a strong word, perhaps too strong, but not entirely inaccurate either.

And you can’t argue that the way FB handled the removal of the account and then demanding money afterwards doesn’t look just a little bad?

Its only been 2 weeks but i have finally had a repsone from facebook regarding the ransom for our fanpage.
Hi Andrew,

Thank you for following up. We are able to support gambling clients with permanent spends above 10.000USD per month. If this is your case I would be happy to forward your contact to our sales representative who will be able to provide you dedicated support.

Please let me know if this is something you would be interested in.

Thank you.

Katarina
Global Marketing Solutions
this was sent from gms-emea@fb.com which seems to be a real fb email address.
Having responded by interest in speaking to a member of said sales representative i was sent this response;
Hi Andrew,

Thank you for your answer. The conditions for gambling advertisers and pages are clearly stated in our advertising guidelines. We don’t allow gambling through our self service because we believe the safety of our users is the most important. This is why we prefer to work with gambling clients closely and guarantee the quality of their pages and ads.

Before I connect you with our sales representative, could you please confirm the spend?

Thank you for understanding.

Katarina
Global Marketing Solutions
again from the gms-emea@fb.com email. I dont know about everyone on here but am still very skeptical about the whole thing and i know that there are 100′s of other gambling site on facebook spending no where near $10k a month on fb ads some nothing a tall!
Facebook need to provide more clarity to the gambling industary on the advertising practises and fanpage t&c’s but still seems like they are holding our fanpage to ransom and if we wont commit to a minimum advertising budget per month they we arent allowed a fb presence. This is still as the title states Extortion.

Thank you for following up. We won’t be able to transfer you to one of our sales representative if your monthly spend is not over 10.000USD. I would be happy to connect you as soon as you confirm your budget.

Andrew Edwards
7 Nov (6 days ago)

to Facebook
I can’t confirm to that kind of spend as we are a brand new site only 2 months old and don’t yet have the residual income from the site to reinvest on such a large scale.
By removing our currant fanpage after allowing us to promote the site and use Facebook adverts which you approved from the start only to then change you mind and remove our fanpage and hold it to random is nothing short of extortion!

I’m willing to work on our budget and increase it over time all am asking is you meet us half way. I know a lot of site that aren’t spending any money in advertising but continue to have a fanpage, which isn’t right.

Please can you put us in touch with somebody from your sales department so that we can get our fanpage reinstated

Thank you for following up. The more information you can provide us with regarding your upcoming campaign, the better we can direct your request to the right person. Please visit the following contact form to help us learn more about your advertising needs.

I visited the link and selected $2000 to $9999 with the idea of commiting to a $2500 a month budget to begin with. I was contacted back by what i later found to be the Busines Delevopment team at Facebook below;

My name is Matt Taylor and I work on the Marketing Solutions Team at Facebook.

I would like to talk to you about your marketing initiatives and understand your goals for Facebook advertising.

We have a marketing solution program called Start to Success, where we are offering a limited number of businesses each month the opportunity to have ‘one to one’ phone consultation with our Marketing Solutions team.

As part of this free offering, our team will work with you to help you better understand the Facebook platform and how to implement advertising campaigns that drive marketing results.

I would like to set up a call to discuss this in more detail, what would be the most suitable date and time?

With the run up Christmas I think it would be good idea to get touch with us to discuss this in further detail.

I look forward to speaking with you soon.

Kind regards,

Matt

Matt Taylor | Business Development EMEA SMB
facebook

there was a direct number included in his footer which i phone and spoke to Matt personally. He was really helpful but unfortunately he couldn’t explain why this spend was in place and informed me that all gambling sites are managed by a dedicated team in Dublin and they wouldn’t even look at approving us unless we committed in writing to the minimum $10k a month spend!

It seems we have been used as the example to the igaming industry, its only a matter of time before the Powers that be at Facebook run this out across all gambling related sites on Facebook!

A dedicated FB office for gambling related clients who must spend a minimum of $10K p/m to keep their FanPage. Who can commit to that kind of cash? Apart from Super Affiliates no one other than casinos and gaming venues could afford this price tag. Not withstanding the industry being so volatile these days, would certainly reduce these numbers even more.

Seems like a clueless exercise. When, as one poster here suggested, it would make more sense to charge a standardised monthly fee for every gambling related FanPage. Which I suppose if need be due to traffic and resources, could be worked out on a sliding scale.

Unless, the $10K minimum monthly spend has a hidden agenda. And, why is this FB office located in Dublin of all places?

Hi Andy
Really worrying post to be honest. That’ll definitely leave no room for the brand I’m handling on Facebook, as it’s exclusive for Denmark, where we are licensed.
At least it’ll leave things even for all forwards, as I highly doubt anyone will find a positive ROI for a monthly investment of $10k for denmark alone.

Sad for you guys though as you’ll find your previous work/investment lost and I think it’s really bad business ethics by FB.

The fan page we run for our affiliate site was unpublished several weeks ago with 18,000 legitimate likes and thousands of pounds of advertising spend.

Other than a one line reply to our initial appeal from “Sofi” Facebook have not responded to our emails and re-appeals. We wanted to build a legitimate page and online community, pay advertising to do this and build our brand on Facebook.

However given what has happened we have no faith in building a new page. Instead we are able to setup fake pages under fake names and advertising accounts funded by fake paypal accounts. We have managed to advertise clear and blatant links for sports book sign up offers, enhanced football prices and even casino offers for the companies we promote. Adverts sometimes get blocked, however it is easy to setup new accounts and repeat.

We did not want to operate like this, however Facbeooks absurd minimum spend policy has given us no choice. We lost a page of legitimate followers and now our advertising is restricted to spammy links rather than directing traffic to benefit from our site features/articles/blogs etc. Frustrating to say the least….

Yer, seems FB are on a trend of this again Johnny unfortunately. Despite that things seemed to be a little better for a while. Seen a lot of shut downs over the last 2 months…. They’re not helping themselves by penalizing legitimate accounts.